Intern Health Study 2021 (IHS 2021)

University of Michigan

Status

Completed

Conditions

Telemedicine

Treatments

Behavioral: Intern Health Study mobile app competition scoreboard and history

Behavioral: Intern Health Study mobile app

Behavioral: Intern Health Study competition-related mobile notification

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT05537532

HUM00033029.21

Details and patient eligibility

About

The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of gamified competition (delivered through a smartphone) for improving the physical activity and sleep of medical interns.

Full description

Due to their high-stress workloads, medical interns tend to have lower sleep and decreased physical activity. The goal of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of gamified competition (delivered through a smartphone) for improving the physical activity and sleep of medical interns. During the study, they are teamed up by programs and institutions and compete with other teams, which aim to motivate them to have more physical activity and sleep duration during their internship year.

The primary aim of this study is to investigate whether introducing competition mechanisms into mobile health (mHealth) interventions can improve a medical intern's activity-related behavioral outcomes: daily step counts and sleep duration. The first secondary aim is to assess the time-varying competition effect on their behavioral outcomes. The first exploratory aim is to assess the competition effect on study engagement and the second exploratory aim is to evaluate the competition effect on mental outcome, mood score.

Enrollment

1,486 patients

Sex

All

Volunteers

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

Medical intern during the 2021-2022 internship year
Enrolled in study by the start of internship (7/1/22)

Exclusion criteria

None

Trial design

Primary purpose

Treatment

Allocation

Randomized

Interventional model

Parallel Assignment

Masking

None (Open label)

1,486 participants in 2 patient groups

Competition group

Experimental group

Description:

Programs with at least five interns were grouped into program-based teams. Interns within the same residency institution in programs that did not meet this criterion were grouped into institution-based teams, with a minimum of five participants per team. For each week, an eligible team is randomized to either a steps competition or non-competition group with 50/50 chance. For those randomized to competition arm, teams were assigned an opponent team by total randomization, by which the opponent team was assigned regardless of institution and specialty.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Intern Health Study competition-related mobile notification

Behavioral: Intern Health Study mobile app

Behavioral: Intern Health Study mobile app competition scoreboard and history

Non-competition group

Experimental group

Description:

For each week, an eligible team is randomized to either competition or non-competition group with 50/50 chance.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Intern Health Study mobile app